Wednesday, August 17, 2016
One missing skill
Building this Poser scene of a print shop (definitely WIP at this point!) forced me to find forgotten details of the typesetting craft in old books. It's a tremendously complex craft. A little engineering, a little carpentry, a little chemistry, a fair amount of grunt work (LEAD IS HEAVY!), a lot of grammar and punctuation, a lot of art, a lot of fine manipulation.
All of those details were familiar after the reminder. I could DO all of those things in 1972, well enough to satisfy the employer.
WHY did I waste such a fine set of SKILLS and pursue academics instead?
Easy answer. Because I was a fucking fool. Everyone expected me to finish college and do something academic. I persisted with college, despite WILDLY OBVIOUS indications that college was driving me crazy. Typesetting made me sane.
The specific situation was unpleasant, but there's a proper answer to that. Stay long enough to quit honorably, save up enough to travel, then find a printshop with a more pleasant atmosphere.
I don't think the right decision was available in 1972. Nothing in the media and culture, and nobody in my circle of acquaintance, was encouraging me to stick with this "lowly" but highly satisfying work. Everything and everybody EXCEPT MY OWN SOUL pointed to academics. My own soul didn't have a lobbyist.
Should have been reading Emerson.
= = = = =
Most of these skills are also visible in Youtube, which is the Modern Library Of Old Skills... but one is oddly missing from both the old books and the new videos. Operating an intaglio engraving press. The simpler and more 'artsy' engraving operations are shown in both places, but not the hand-fed stamper.
Building this Poser scene of a print shop (definitely WIP at this point!) forced me to find forgotten details of the typesetting craft in old books. It's a tremendously complex craft. A little engineering, a little carpentry, a little chemistry, a fair amount of grunt work (LEAD IS HEAVY!), a lot of grammar and punctuation, a lot of art, a lot of fine manipulation.
All of those details were familiar after the reminder. I could DO all of those things in 1972, well enough to satisfy the employer.
WHY did I waste such a fine set of SKILLS and pursue academics instead?
Easy answer. Because I was a fucking fool. Everyone expected me to finish college and do something academic. I persisted with college, despite WILDLY OBVIOUS indications that college was driving me crazy. Typesetting made me sane.
The specific situation was unpleasant, but there's a proper answer to that. Stay long enough to quit honorably, save up enough to travel, then find a printshop with a more pleasant atmosphere.
I don't think the right decision was available in 1972. Nothing in the media and culture, and nobody in my circle of acquaintance, was encouraging me to stick with this "lowly" but highly satisfying work. Everything and everybody EXCEPT MY OWN SOUL pointed to academics. My own soul didn't have a lobbyist.
Should have been reading Emerson.
= = = = =
Most of these skills are also visible in Youtube, which is the Modern Library Of Old Skills... but one is oddly missing from both the old books and the new videos. Operating an intaglio engraving press. The simpler and more 'artsy' engraving operations are shown in both places, but not the hand-fed stamper.Labels: skill-estate
¶ 3:24 PM
